Boy and the World

2016 ACADEMY AWARD NOMINEE FOR BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

Cuca’s cozy rural life is shattered when his father leaves for the city, prompting him to embark on a quest to reunite his family. The young boy’s journey unfolds like a tapestry, the animation taking on greater complexity as his small world expands. Entering civilization, industrial landscapes are inhabited by animal-machines, with barrios of decoupage streets and shop windows, and flashing neon advertisements that illuminate the night. The story depicts a clash between village and city, hand crafted and mechanized, rich and poor – and throughout the tumult, the heart and soul of the people beats on as a song. The film’s music is on equal footing with the stunning visuals, a soundscape of pan-flute, samba, and Brazilian hip-hop mixing with the whirling carnival colors and exploding fireworks.

"Earns its Oscar nomination with gorgeous, hypnotic animation." - Star Tribune

"The best animated film of the year." - Indiewire

"A beautifully drawn journey... a contemporary allegory and an ancient fable" - NPR

“One of the most impressive animated features I’ve seen… a brightly colored blend of fantasy and neorealism.” - A.V. Club

Director's Statement

I was working on developing another film, an animated documentary called Canto Latino on the history of the formation of South America, when I found a drawing I had done of the Boy in one of my notebooks. What struck me about the design was the looseness of the lines of this character, and how the character represented a certain aesthetic opposite of the urgency and tension of the documentary that I was putting together. I began to wonder how the Boy would fit in the context of Canto Latino and started by creating small story designs with the Boy carried by the wind, running through a forest, meeting with certain characters, etc. I gathered these various pieces together to try to explore the larger relationship between the Boy and the world around him, and then began experimenting with sounds and music references to enhance this exploration.

As the creator of the film I tried to put myself as close to the character of a small boy as possible. I wasn’t necessarily trying to draw like a child, but seeking to reflect the same freedom that children have to draw in whatever way they want. I tried to do this by creating the various patterns, bright colors, and different mixing techniques. I used oil pastel, but also color pencils, fountain and ballpoint pens, all kinds of paint, and also collage of newspapers and magazines.

Making this film was like a game. By inserting a child’s character into the documentary, the film automatically turned into fiction. In Canto Latino, I was exploring the fact that all Latin American countries were colonies whose main economy was driven by being suppliers of raw materials and cheap labor. For economic gain, they suffered so many coups and military dictators, and I wanted to examine the transition from these countries being new “children” of the world and how they progressed into becoming “adults” in an increasingly globalized world where political decisions are driven solely by economic interests. In this way, the “world” that the boy discovers in Boy and the World is ultimately a reflection of himself and his own transition from the innocence of childhood into the reality of adulthood.

Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky said that cinema fills in our spiritual holes, and I believe that, too – and can only hope that my work, and Boy and the World, reflects that as well.

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